New words and Epiphanies!

Ava is getting bigger everyday!  She is learning new words all the time.  She says, "up," "down," "roar," "meow," "done," "shoes," "sigh (for outside)," "kide (for slide)," "Mah-ee (for her friend Molly)," "cup," "wawa (water)," "tickle-tickle-tickle," and these are just a few of the new things she is saying all the time.  She definitely is like her daddy.  She will try to figure something out for awhile before getting frustrated.  She finds lots of different ways to try and complete her objective (i.e. bring my cell phone up the ladder for the slide with her or buckle her own seat belt).    She also figured out how to turn on the washer and dryer.  It is AMAZING to me how much she learns just by watching!  I love my little girl!!

I also realized in the last couple days that I expect more from my daughter than I do from myself.  As you all know, sleep has been the bane of our existence throughout Ava's entire life.  It has been much better in the last several weeks.  She typically wakes once a night sometime between 2 and 4 am.  Last night she woke 3 times and I found myself very frustrated, but I realized something.  I sometimes wake several times in one night, whether with indigestion, having the use the restroom, weird dreams, or just a mind that doesn't want to shut down.  I don't always fall back to sleep immediately either.  Why then do I expect my daughter, who is just learning to sleep through the night, to do better than I do?  It is easy to get frustrated with her and annoyed that she is not doing exactly what I would like, but I need to remember that she is also probably annoyed that she is tired and not sleeping.  Now if I can just keep this in mind at 3 in the morning :)

That is all for now.  We are finally home after being gone visiting family for 3 weeks.  Thankfully it was pretty pain free to get back into our routine.  Lots of fun things coming up with the Soybean festival :)

Been a long time...

I haven't posted in awhile, because not too much is going on right now.  We are in North Carolina visiting my parents.  My cousin Erin's wedding was this past Saturday.  Beautiful wedding, beautiful bride.  For the daddy daughter dance they did "Little Miss Honkeytonk" which is their song.  My Uncle Brad comes out dressed in full country attire.  Blue jeans, ball cap, and cut off jean shirt.  IT WAS AWESOME!!!

Ava even did well at the wedding.  Thanks so much to my parents and my sister Tina for watching her all afternoon and through the wedding so I could get ready with the bride and take pictures, etc.  It worked out really well.  I swear my daughter must not like weddings, between her fever and new molars at my brothers wedding, and her fever, trip to the ER, double ear infections, and UTI at my cousin's wedding, it was stressful.  Why she can't just be her wonderful self, I don't know.  She has to keep me guessing I guess.  She looked cute at the wedding though.

My parents have a cat named Boots who meows very loudly and very often.  So Ava has taken to meowing back at him very loudly.  It is absolutely the cutest thing.  I am hoping I can get it on video to share with everyone else.  It makes me laugh every time she does it.  We are enjoying our time with my family, but we miss Jason big much.  Ava will often walk around the house saying "daddy" or walk up to the door and say "daddy?"  Poor thing.  She will be super excited when she sees him on Friday.  Well that is about all for now.